Hiro's Multiplying Muddles
by nakile
Summary: Hiro's lab experiment is failing and Tadashi is trying to coach him along as usual. But it isn't working. Hiro has other problems and interest in his life that are better grabbing his attention. [Tadashi Lives]


"Ugh." Hiro groaned. "What is going on with this thing?" He kept looking at the toaster sized contraption on his desk from all sorts of different angles. Sorting out the pathways of the various wires and circuits that made it up, flowing through a troubleshooting chart in his mind and referring back to the schematics that, so desperate not to be staring at a computer screen anymore, he printed out. "Tadashi, where's the good multimeter at?"

"I put it on the top shelf little bro."

It was evening at the "nerd lab" at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Hiro and Tadashi were working away in Tadashi's lab. Artificial light overtook sunlight as the sun began to set, the orange glow slowly fading away. Inside Tadashi's lab a visible divide was forming. Toward one side of the room, where the windows were and where Tadashi worked, it was rather clean. In the other corner was Hiro's nook, which could only be described as taking on some form of organized chaos (as Hiro described it anyway).

"Why are you still putting stuff up there now that I study in here?"

"Between you and me... I'm hiding it. I let a few people, who shall not be named, borrow it and one blew out every fuse in it and the other scuffed the side up. It's still a bit too new for me to be okay putting it through stuff like that. Speaking of which," Tadashi points to Hiro's contraction, "don't tell me you're going to shove it into that mess of supercapacitors you have going on there? No way."

"But this thing is pissing me off!"

"Watch your language!"

"But I'm frustrated! This is normal! Watch!" Hiro paces over to the window, opening it, sticking his head out.

"Hiro, what are you..."

"AAAAAAAHH!" Hiro shouts loudly out the window, his voice echoing across the campus.

"Hiro!" Tadashi scuttles over to the window. "What was that all about!"

"Listen..." He responds with a whisper. He puts his ear to the open window. "Hear that?"

Tadashi moves in next to Hiro to listen. In the distance, a shout much like Hiro's can be heard. A few moments later, another, then another. They start to pick up until there is one every few seconds. People all over campus, shouting just because they heard other people do it.

"Campus wide frustration." Hiro states matter-of-factly. "You're the nerd who would never understand."

Tadashi, still listening to the shouting, was speechless. "Unbelievable." After becoming lost in thought, he looks over to see Hiro with the multimeter in hand headed over to his supercapacitor brick. He watches as Hiro sticks the probes in and after wiggling them around for a bit, jumps back after a popping sound and falls on his rear on the floor...! "Hiro!"

Tadashi quickly ran to Hiro's side. Hiro sat back up quickly but was holding his right hand with his left. "Damn it! My hand." He tried moving it a bit.

Dismissing Hiro's cursing this time, Tadashi tried his best to aide his brother. "Is just your hand numb?"

"I think so, I mean, if my heart stopped I definitely wouldn't be hearing the blood rushing through my head right now."

Baymax was apart for upgrades right now, so Tadashi was just going to have to be old school about it: hope for the best. Knowing that his brother would at least live, he ripped in. "What were you thinking! Those things can have many hundreds of volts running through them! And it's direct current, so it arcs very easy!"

Hiro thought about it and had no good answer, maybe. "I've... never worked with high voltage stuff like that before. I knew it could be dangerous but I figured if I just poked at it the right way I would be safe."

Now Tadashi felt bad. It was still easy for him to forget that, despite how smart Hiro was and how far ahead in life he was, he could still act like a kid. "This was my fault. I should have at least said something. I just stood there and watched you poke into that thing with any electrical gloves at all. I figured with the way you went at it that it had never been charged up but I shouldn't have assumed."

Now Hiro felt bad. For as long as he could remember, whenever he made a mistake in a topic his brother also knew, Tadashi would always blame himself for Hiro's mistake. For them, that meant there was a lot of self blaming going on. "It's not your fault. I knew it could go bad but I did it anyway because I thought to myself 'what's the worse that could happen?'"

Tadashi stood up, offering a hand to his brother. When Hiro raised his left hand, a brief look of bewilderment flashed over his face, then he switched hands to pull Hiro up. "Well, it's science, so a lot can happen if your not safe little bro." Tadashi had moved over to the side of his office, opening a drawer and pulling out a pair of electrical gloves. "Remember Carol? She didn't wear her safety glasses. Now she doesn't have to." Tadashi lamented to Hiro as he tossed the gloves to his brother. Hiro caught them in his arms, reminding Tadashi that he probably shouldn't have thrown them to a person whose hand is still numb. "Those are your safety glasses, but for your hands."

Hiro takes the gloves in his arms and set them on the table. Gaining movement back in his right hand but little feeling he slips the gloves on. "It doesn't fit that well." He walks over to his desk to pick up a soldering iron but the bulkiness of the glove stops him from gaining a good grip. "See, I can't pick anything up." He says with annoyance.

With a knowing smirk on his face, Tadashi hits it home. "Well, it looks like you need to wait a bit before you work on that thing again until we can get smaller gloves."

"$&amp;#*" Hiro thought to himself, more as an emotion and less as a word. "I'm going home for the night."

"Want a ride?" Tadashi asked.

"No, not unless you calling it quits too."

"I'd give you one either way."

"I can walk. I didn't shock that part of my body! Are you done with stuff?"

"Fine. And no, I'm still compiling Baymax new software. This is going to be a big upgrade to move him toward more natural speech."

"Can't you just work on that remotely? It's just software."

"No. I don't like have a computer at home. The last thing I want to be doing at home when I'm with you and Aunt Cass is have some excuse to keep working on stuff. And smart phones are still toys that we haven't figured out how to do real work on in this theoretical future universe we live in in this story."

Hiro rolls his eyes. "Okay, now you're starting to sound like Fred! I think that's my call to leave and you call to get some coffee!"

Tadashi laughs at Hiro's analogy to their existential friend. "I would if I drank it. See ya little bro."

"Bye Dashi."

~`~`~ ... ... ... * * * ... ... ... ~`~`~

The temperature was warm and the humidity mild. The clouds floated fluffy and solid in the dark and orange sky, forming shadows on one another from the setting sun. Hiro found himself walking into a very nice evening. As he made it off campus and onto the streets of San Fransokyo, he noticed that the street vendors had a bit more business than usual, thanks to the weather. He was tempted himself. 'I could so go for some tsukune right now...' He fought the urge and moved onward, knowing that Aunt Cass would most likely have dinner prepared since shop closed early on Sunday and Tadashi totally told her he was coming home the second he left. Hopefully he didn't tell her why.

As he walked into the Lucky Cat Cafe and moved up the stairs, he was totally fucking right. His eyes weren't burning when he hit the stairway so no blast furnace grade hot wings tonight (unfortunately), but there was a smell of dinner cooking. As he made his way to the second floor living space, Aunt Cass noticed his presence. "Hiro! How's my little college man doing?"

"I'm doing great Aunt Cass." he said with a sort-of-put-on smile.

"We're having fried chicken with some baked potato wedges tonight."

"That sounds great Aunt Cass, I'll be upstairs okay?"

"Okay."

Hiro breathed a sigh of relief. It looks like Tadashi didn't mention his little accident. He opened the door to Tadashi and his bedroom and by the light of the street lamps though the window made his way to his desk and turned on a lamp. He woke his desktop computer from sleep mode and started to browse Tumblr.

Nobody he knew, so Tadashi, his friends, and Aunt Cass, knew that he used Tumblr because the blogs he followed were super gay. He almost felt bad... no, he did feel bad at times about it. He hated keeping this a secret from those in his life because of how much it held him down, but... it had to be done. 'Tadashi and Aunt Cass would fly off the hook if they saw this stuff...' It went much beyond just a website though, but that was hard to think about so Hiro never really did. 'I wish I could tell them everything. I could be myself then. But I never get a good chance.'

'Or is that just an excuse I tell myself? Piece of garbage.' He avoided letting the Internet suck him in too much because he knew he would be called down to dinner any minute.

~`~`~ ... ... ... * * * ... ... ... ~`~`~

Late that night Hiro was in his bed cuddled into a pillow, dreaming of one of his dream boys. It was boy his age with Japanese-American heritage much like his own and black hair cut duck-butt style, a la Sasuke from Naruto. Like many nights he imagined that it was his job to make his imaginary romantic interest know that, in his very opinion, he held real meaning to this world.

"Oh my Goddd I love you." Hiro mumbled into the pillow holding it in a tight hug. "Your soooo pretty, oh my Godddd."

This was the particular fantasy where Hiro's imaginary boyfriend decided it was the night to let him in on his "terrible little secret."

"You can tell me, I won't get mad, I promise." Hiro reassured him.

"No, I can't. This has happened before and it always goes bad!"

"What? Listen, it'll be okay. I love you, you can tell anything."

"But you might hate me!"

"Did you kill somebody?"

No! No no no."

"Did you use to be a rapist?"

"No! No! No no no."

"Then what is it?" The tension grew. Pillow looked Hiro in the eyes before looking down and whisper our his terrible little secret.

"I'm... not actually gay. I'm bi. And I've been with girls before." Hiro's eyes widen and he takes his imaginary boyfriend into his arms and hugs him the hardest he ever has.

"So you... bisexual?" Hiro ask in confirmation. His boyfriend nods his head in approval.

"Yes. And I've been with girls. I'm sorry I kept it from you. Most guys I've dated kind of drop me when I tell them so I hide it because I can then pretend it will last and that it is all real."

Which made Hiro tear up a bit. "Noooooooo. Noo." He whispered to Pillow as he hugged him tonight. "That's so bad and sad and I can't... nooo. Your so pretty.. ahh."

Pillow hugged back. "You... aren't mad but..." Pillow let the question float in the air.

Hiro looked Pillow in the eyes with the tears still visible and have him a smile, moving in to turn it into a kiss that lasted several seconds. "We're more similar than you think.." He pulled and and held Pillow close to him and whispered into his ear. "You are my dream, dude..."

Hiro was taken out of the fantasy by the sound of a Moped coming home. Damn it, Tadashi is here. If the past was any indication of future results, Tadashi would eat his dinner that their Aunt put away for him then either come "bug" Hiro for a bit and leave again or go to bed. Of some whim, Hiro decided to head downstairs to talk with his brother.

As the bottom of the stairs Hiro found his brother eating his dinner cold at the kitchen table. "Hey little bro." Tadashi spoke up, wiping his mouth and hands with a napkin. "What are you doing still up after such a long day?"

"Why are you eating your dinner cold?" Hiro asked dodging the question.

"I didn't want to wake you or Aunt Cass up reheating it, but I guess I only worry half about that now." He answered. "Why are you still up?" He pressed again.

Deciding that it wasn't a good time to tell of his exquisite bedroom fantasies, "I was kind of just thinking of what I did at the lab earlier today." It wasn't a lie. Between walking home and Tumblr and between dinner and his pillow business he had, for a bit, done just that.

Tadashi put his napkin down and stared into space in thought. "You know I thought about it for a bit and realized that I did way worse things in the lab when I started out."

His brother was going to tell him of his screw-ups to make him feel better! "Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Lets go way back in time. In middle school I put HCl into a plastic beaker that was, you know, suppose to be chemical proof, not realizing that HCl is a general outlier. It melted the bottom out and puddled onto the desk, one of those glossy black-topped science ones and left a puddle shape chemical burn."

"Unbelievable."

"That desk haunted me it seems. It followed me to the high school and jumped from science classroom to science classroom over the three years I went there and when I saw the burn, I had to always tell the story and, of all things, no one ever believed me."

"I kind of don't myself."

"Well, it happened. The thing is, Hiro, part of science is making mistakes. And sometimes, a mistake will even be the best thing that you can ever do because it will lead to a new discovery..." Tadashi paused.

"But..." Hiro hummed, taking notice of Tadashi's storytelling routine of telling teachable lessons.

"But you can't kill yourself in the process. I'll be sad because you'll be dead and if you start discovering or inventing new things the science community will be sad to see you go too."

'Yeah yeah.' Hiro thought. In fact he _had_ already thought of this earlier. Back when he was walking home as a matter of fact.

He also was kind of amused at what his older brother had just inadvertently done. This conversation had gone from an attempt to make him feel better by saying "I've done this to, it's okay little bro" right back to "You need to be careful or else you will die."

Hiro decided to be nice and diplomatic. He'd done enough to his brother for one day. "You right. I thought of that earlier on the way home myself. I actually think," and Hiro meant it when he said this, "I might just give up on the supercapacitor project since it wasn't really practical and just for fun."

Tadashi, in contrast to a few moments ago, seemed surprised. "Don't give up on something just because it's dangerous."

"I know, it's just that once I add the switched-mode converter to make the packs voltage output consistent with that of a battery it will be a bulky mess. It will never hold as much power as Baymax lithium pack in the first place. You know this, too. It was just a for fun thing with no real purpose. Now look at this mess it has created and time it's wasted."

"Yeah, but, I was kind of curious to see if it could be useful for Baymax to run in short burst followed by instant charges vs long burst with short charges. It might be more applicable in a high paced medical environment."

Hiro was getting frustrated again. He knew what Tadashi was trying to do. First, there would be times when he had to do things he didn't want to do but he had to anyway. But when that time came, he would face that... as he has in the past. He didn't have to put up with it from his family! Second, if Hiro's supercapacitor bank was indeed useful, his older brother could use it. The second thought kind of pissed him off for some reason.

"Alright... see ya Dashi." He said as he ran up the stairs.

"Hirooooo..." Tadashi spoke back standing up. But Hiro was out of earshot–no–care shot, before he was finished. "What's up with him lately?"

~`~`~ ... ... ... * * * ... ... ... ~`~`~

His desk lamp the sole source of light in the room, Hiro sat at his desk with Megabot in hand. He meticulously surveyed every millimeter of its surface, looking for anything that screamed of needing maintenance. Every once in a while he would eye the controller lying on his desk. If Tadashi didn't want him to be bot fighting anymore then he was doing a bad job.

A dilemma played out in Hiro's head. 'I'll just get in more trouble if I go. Tadashi will just chase me down with the GPS trackers. But... whatever! Maybe I could rip them out? But then... he couldn't find me.' Hiro hated to admit it, but it was hella convenient to have his brother zoom in and be his knight in shining armor after a bot fight. 'What do I do?'

He looked up at his wall, where a WarGames poster hung. 'The only winning move, is not to play.' He pondered the words in his head, looking at Megabot. 'I feel like... every single thing I want to do had a downside. Is this what growing up is like?'

Hiro sat Megabot on his desk next to its controller then stood up and walked over to his window. He stared outside looking at nothing in particular, since that was not the goal. It was to feel like he wasn't inside. He looked to the sky and the stars, which always gave him a feeling of freedom. Kind of, it wasn't like he could just fly up there, but at least it didn't feel encaging. At least nothing was shoved into his field of view.

But avast. Here comes his brother up the stairs. 'Damn it Dashi...'

Tadashi entered and made his way to his side of the bedroom. He noticed Hiro staring aimlessly out one of his windows. Deciding not to disturb him, he began to pick up a few things from his dresser.

Hiro noted the sounds of Tadashi's actions. And they were not the sound of a person headed to bed. They were the sounds of a person getting ready. 'He's going back to the lab...' Hiro thought as a pang shot through his heart. "Your headed back out aren't you?" Tadashi paused for a few seconds before speaking up.

"Yeah. Baymax new program should be done compiling and I want to add the new libraries to him now." Hiro turned around and faced his brother. Tadashi slowly took in his distraught face. "So... I know I'm not around a lot anymore... but it's for a good cause."

"I see you're out of colorful metaphors." Hiro spat out. "All we do is work together in lab. You feel more like a bossy co worker now more than you do a family member."

"I'm trying my best Hiro! I try to pop home when I can."

"But it's not enough Tadashi. You're little bits of time spent at home are more of an annoyance than anything." Hiro knew it sounded really bad but couldn't think of any other way to get it out.

"An... annoyance?" Tadashi looked like a heartbroken kid.

"Yeah..." Hiro went on slowly. "Like... you home just enough to interrupt me but not actually be there for me."

"Interrupt...? Well, what are you doing that I couldn't just jump in and help you with for a bit like at the lab?"

Thanks to Tadashi's choice of phrasing, Hiro started to giggle to himself, then laugh out loud. He made his way to his bed, which he proceeded to roll around on in a pure fit of laughter. After a moment of confusion, a light went off in Tadashi's head and a blush spread across his entire face. "Uh... we need to have a talk Hiro..."

Hiro stopped rolling to look at his brother, then burst out into sobbing laughter doubling over in of himself. He managed to speak out a response between laughs. "A talk? You. Waited. Too long! I've had. Enough time. To figure it all out."

For the first time in a long time Tadashi didn't really want to give Hiro advice. He wasn't ready for this and never would be. He was hoping that it would never come up... a naive thought that goes through every authority figures head even though they know it's wrong. "Uh... you might have some misinformation thought Hiro? Anything that's confusing?" 'Man, I sound like a mumbling idiot!' Tadashi thought.

"Yeaaah!" Hiro feels like he's the one in power now. "But before I ask anything I need to know something... for my own well being..." Hiro looked at his brother with a devious look in his eyes. "You mentioned jumping in and helping me out just a moment ago...?"

Tadashi's face went red and as his tried to cover it with his hands. "Uh that's... not really appropriate..." He choked out. "I uh... got to get back to lab." He said dashing for the door. "Baymax should be done compiling and bye!" He said closing the door thusly.

Hiro ran to his window and opened it to look outside. He watched Tadashi get onto his moped and after rubbing his face start it up and buzz off quicker than normal. "That worked... too well. I don't think he'll be back tonight..." Hiro spoke to himself. "Which means..."

He walked to his bed, kicking his clothes off too careless to put on his pajamas before slipping in between the sheets and cuddling up to Pillow. 'Let's get back to where we left off...'

~`~`~ ... ... ... * * * ... ... ... ~`~`~

Back at the nerd lab, Tadashi wasn't working on Baymax. He was working on himself. "What do I do? How do I talk to Hiro about... sex." He didn't want to scare his little brother. It also bothered him that Hiro said he had "figured it all out." This was a recipe for disaster. What if he's hurting himself without realizing it? What if his expectations are all out of whack? What if he's getting information from an unreliable source?

That last one made his skin crawl. 'Hiro isn't an idiot... but this stuff can get... intricate.' After a moment of mental silence, Tadashi lifted his head from his hands and looked to Baymax. 'I should tell him but... it would be awkward for both of us. Maybe this could work...' Tadashi made his way over to the workstation and pressed enter on the keyboard. Baymax sprung to life.

"Hello Tadashi. My software has successfully updated. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yeah, Baymax." Tadashi paused. "Could you give Hiro the sex talk?"

"That would be within my abilities." Baymax paused. "You're experiencing anxiety. Is it related to this request?" To make things more seamless Baymax now scans without announcing it. Tadashi reasoned that focusing on the results and not the process would make Baymax more use friendly.

"Yes. But I can manage it."

"I can give Hiro, the talk, but he will have more questions as time goes on. Since you are around him more, you would be best suited to do so."

'Damn robot making sense.' Tadashi thought. "I can answer questions he has in the future. Its just... this big first talk..."

"Would me giving Hiro, the talk, help you with your anxiety?"

"Yes. It would." Tadashi said with content.

"Then I will do it. Where is Hiro currently located?"

"You should wait until morning Baymax. He'll be at home."

~`~`~ ... ... ... * * * ... ... ... ~`~`~

"Perpiii! Perpii!" The chirps of the morning birds slowly drug Hiro out of him dreams. He looked to the window and there was faint glow of sun making its way over the horizon and into his bedroom, which traveled through his eyes and then into to his brain which told him to groan. 'Birds... sunlight... it's morning.' he thought with regret. He shifted in bed to gain a sense of his being. Pillow was thusly smashed into his side held tight by the sheets on top of them both. A faint laugh came to him as he wrapped his arms around Pillow and rubbed its back. "What have you done to me?" His t-shirt was hung over the headboard and he found his pajama pants discarded onto the floor. He slipped them on under the blankets to keep himself shielded from the cool morning air.

He looked over to Tadashi's side of the room to see that his older brother wasn't home. 'Oh...' Hiro thought. 'Now I feel kind of bad.' He always knew that Tadashi was awkward about the topic from his interactions with others but last night was where the rubber met the... something. So he must have stayed out all night at the institute working on Baymax once again.

That made a thought crossed Hiro's mind for a bit, but he brushed it off. His thoughts move on to the day ahead. 'Aunt Cass definitely isn't up yet... so no breakfast... so no reason to be up yet...' With that he curled back into his sheets...

"Hiro! It's breakfast time! It'll be ready any minute." He was woke by the shouting of his aunt from downstairs. He looked around his room and saw that the sunlight was much brighter now and he felt a bit more rested still, so it had been a few hours.

"I'll be down in a minute!" He shouted. He didn't smell anything yet so he knew his aunt was doing that thing where she would "trick" him into coming down earlier by pitching that food would be ready any minute like some salesman or something. It never really worked.

Downstairs Aunt Cass was working away over the kitchen stove. Her attention was broken by a sound like motors and balloons rubbing against one another. She looked to her left...

"Oh Baymax! What are you doing here?"

"Hello! I'm here to speak to Hiro." The robot spoke waving it's right hand, palm open, in a circle.

"Ah! Just in time! Could you come and wake him for breakfast, too?" Without any words the balloon of a robot squirmed his way up the stairs to the attic.

Hiro could hear thumping coming up the stairs, thought it was different than normal. He lifted his torso up out of bed just in time to see Baymax waddle into the room.

"Baymax!" Hiro cheered getting out of bed and running up to the robot. "What are you doing here?"

"Aunt Cass sent to to get you for breakfast, but more importantly, Tadashi sent me to give you the talk."

"I-yeeee..." is what Hiro's mind sent straight to his mouth. "Damn it Dashi!"

* * *

I might turn this into a multi-chapter story if this gets some feedback and I can think of some more ideas.


End file.
